


handful of hours

by MidwesternDuchess



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Are they friends?, F/M, I don't care as long as they keep having cute little side coversations, I got lost while writing it honestly, I'm very very rusty but here's 5k words of something, all I know is I feel widojest in this chili's tonight, are they lovers?, are they siblings?, comes crawling back to the CR fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-09 18:51:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17412314
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidwesternDuchess/pseuds/MidwesternDuchess
Summary: "A subtle thought came killing me." -Guido Cavalcanti(The Traveler and Trent Ikithon. It is a comparison Caleb wishes he could forget the moment he thinks of it.)





	handful of hours

Caleb worries abut Jester.

Well—to be wholly fair, _Caleb worries_ is a complete thought all on its own. The wizard is an exceptionally anxious individual, and reserves apprehension about a great many different things, often all at once.

He worries about the Nein as a whole, first and foremost. Worries about being at sea, worries about money, worries about his supply of spell casting materials, worries about the condition of his books, worries about his old life catching up with him, worries about falling short, about failing, about not being enough—

But there always seems to be a certain section of his ever-turning mind that saves a spot for a little blue tiefling.

There's something about her that _tugs_ at him. A strange sort of nostalgia that escapes classification—like she's linked to a memory he can't name. She's familiar in a way that makes her the first person Caleb looks for in a fight—the first direction his thoughts turn to when something goes wrong _._ She's always there, mysteriously tethered to him. A complete stranger Caleb has known no longer than the rest, and yet he's inexplicably drawn to her.

He kicks the thought of romance and infatuation aside. It isn't _that—_ of this he's sure. It isn't any kind of love that keeps Jester in his sights, but some kind of idle anxiety. Like his subconscious knows something is wrong, and is acting on it without Caleb's awareness.

He's wrestled with it for weeks now, going back and forth, changing his ideas and theories over and over again until he's contradicted himself a hundred times, trying to understand what it is about Jester that allows her to hold such sway over him.

It finally comes together with Nott, who whispers to Caleb about Jester's question regarding…well, a topic Caleb can't say he had any particular interest in.

"She's never been _kissed,_ Caleb!" Nott hisses, oversized eyes widening further with shock, pupils blown wide in the darkness of dusk as they stand together at the bow of the _Ball Eater._

Caleb grimaces, focused on bandaging his hands while Frumpkin prowls across the boat's guardrail, tail swishing as he watches fish dart beneath the dark water.

"She told you that in _confidence,_ Nott," he reminds the goblin somewhat sternly. "We have our own promises to each other, and I recognize that, but you don't have to relay _everything—"_

"She said she loves the Traveler," Nott blurts out, and Caleb's hands freeze of their own accord.

There's a pause. Frumpkin glances over his shoulder, sensing the disquiet.

"She _what?"_

"Okay, okay, she didn't _actually_ , like, say those _words,"_ Nott hastens to explain. "But you can just tell! _I_ can tell. A girl like that? So…so _inexperienced?"_ Nott watches as Caleb tugs mindlessly on his bandages, his brow furrowed. "I just…what else doesn't she know, you know?"

_What else doesn't she know?_

Caleb imagines there are a great many things Jester doesn't know—he isn't fully convinced she can read a map, and her haggling skills are absolutely dreadful—but he's never exactly _lingered_ on it. There are plenty of things _he_ doesn't know, and whenever the Nein find themselves in a scrap, it always seems to be Jester who produces exactly what they need with a flourish.

He might as well ask what _Beau_ doesn't know, or Yasha or Fjord or—

Caleb's thoughts snag—drawn to a halt by a looming figure in green. The Traveler.

Caleb doesn't trust gods. He never has, doubts he ever will, but he doesn't hold faith against anyone else. If Jester wants to spend her days praying to her god of gateways and tricks, that's entirely her business. If it makes her happy, even better.

But then, Jester's relationship with the Traveler always did strike Caleb as… _off._ Distinctly so.

 _"A god no one's ever heard of?"_ Molly had murmured to him long ago, lazily stretched out beneath the Zadashian sun, his fantastical coat spread around him, wreathing their resident peacock in his favored terrain of bright colors and flashy patterns. _"Even **I** find that odd, and I'm **fashioned** from oddities."_

Caleb works his jaw, thinking.

"She's sheltered," he murmurs back, though he knows that isn't really the answer. "Her worldview is different. She lacks experience, not common sense."

Nott huffs, rolling her eyes. The porcelain of her half-mask gleams in the moonlight where it hangs from her neck.

"Her mother is a _courtesan,"_ she draws the word out, as though Caleb can't be trusted to understand her. "She should know more about this than any of us."

Caleb grits his teeth, growing somewhat annoyed.

"Nott, Jester is—objectively—the most consistently emotionally stable person _on this ship,"_ he reminds her. "I really don't think we need to worry about her wellbeing in _that_ particular capacity."

But even as he says those words, his brain begins turning.

This question of _what else does Jester not know?_ eats at him, suddenly. It isn't his place, and is hardly his business, but he can't shake it.

Jester is _capable_ —which is more than he can say for himself sometimes. She is confident and capricious and clever. He has no _reason_ to worry about her—if anything, _he_ is the one who needs saving in most situations. Why should he worry? What is it about her—what doesn't she _know_ —that makes him so stressed?

His memory comes knocking—flawless and wretched as always.

He remembers leaning against the side of _The Mistake,_ idly listening to Jester chatter away at Caduceus. He hadn't meant to eavesdrop—he doesn't do that anymore, not to this group anyway, not his newfound family—merely absentmindedly anxious as always, seeing if he could lend a steady word or two to their new firbog friend, when—

_"A lot of times I think that maybe the Traveler has left me, and I think maybe things are going poorly and he doesn't like me anymore."_

Caleb had gone stock-still—how could he not? For all of Jester's determination in spreading the good word of the Traveler, Caleb would be hard-pressed to come up with even three solid facts about the tiefling's favored god. She rarely spoke so openly about him, outside of singing his praises to anyone who would listen.

_"But sometimes he'll just show up after a while and tell me that I was on the right path all along, and he just made it fun for me to find it again."_

She'd smiled brightly then, like nothing she said had been the slightest out of place, and when she and Caduceus descended below deck to inspect the food rations, and in the moment before Beauregard approached him, a single thought had bloomed in the back of his mind. It shook and rattled for attention— _why is that so familiar? What is the pattern here? What isn't he seeing?_ —until he finally spared a moment to think—

_Trent Ikithon._

Fire had consumed his mind's eye, blazing brightly in his brain as he went stiff—his very sense of self knocked askew—and for a moment he struggled to place himself in any time, in any place, where is he, gods where _is_ he—?

Then Beau's dark hand—warm and coarse—had clapped him on the shoulder, and he'd _blinked—_

"Caleb?" Nott's voice is very small.

Caleb huffs out of lungful of air, blinking to clear his vision.

Nott shifts closer to him. "We're at sea with the Mighty Nein, on a boat called the _Ball Eater,"_ she reminds him gently.

His fingers—bandages still incomplete, flapping in the breeze—curl around the guardrail.

"Right," he murmurs, as Frumpkin pushes his head against Caleb's half-wrapped hand, seeking affection that Caleb reflexively gives. His familiar purrs appreciatively, angling his head for his master to scratch under his neck.

"Thank you, Nott," he tells her softly, and she nods.

She leaves him in silence for a moment—the little goblin girl has seen him get lost in his own mind so many times, she knows precisely how to ease him back to the present.

"Where did you go?" she inquires after a moment.

Caleb pulls away from the rail, deftly finishing the bandaging on his hands as he turns to walk away.

"Somewhere I'd rather not have gone," he answers, and Nott just sighs as he strides away, already adrift in his head again, leaving Nott and Frumpkin alone of the deck.

"He never goes anywhere _nice,"_ she complains to Frumpkin.

Frumpkin's blinks twice before his pink tongue slips out in a _mlep._

Caleb's coat snaps at his heels as he stalks through the ship—passingly crewmembers who give him and his stormy expression a wide berth—pulling out a book from his bag as he reaches his destination.

Is that why Caleb feels a strange pull to the tiefling? Does he see himself in her relationship with the Traveler? Could Jester be laboring under the same twisting trauma he'd suffered at the hands of his own teacher? Is she being used by the Traveler the way Ikithon used him?

Would she even _know_ it if she was?

Caleb knocks gently on her door, and before his nerves can abandon him, she calls out in a musical voice: " _Coooome iiiin!"_

Obliging, Caleb turns the knob, stepping into her room. His eyes take a moment to adjust—those with darkvision tend to keep lights lower than usual, it's something he's learned from traveling with Nott—and sees Jester is sitting at the room's desk, trademark notebook open before her, quill in hand.

She turns to glance over her shoulder, offering a cheery smile.

"Hello, Caleb," she greets, tail curling idly around the back of her chair as he approaches. He eyes the pointed blue appendage, wondering if she's conscious of its movement or—like so many other things with Jester—if it simply _happens_.

He nods politely. "Jester." He suddenly feels a bit awkward, standing in the dim warmth of her quarters. She flashes him an easy smile he can't return. His convictions lose some of their blazing intensity—Jester? Being used by the Traveler? Suffering as his disciple? Agonizing under his guidance?

It all seems very silly as he steps closer, firelight dancing softly across his face.

"Just needed some quiet," Caleb explains, feeling increasingly stupid. His fingers itch with the desire to summon Frumpkin and soothe his nerves, but he resists. "Mind if I join you?"

A smirk spreads across her teeth. "You wanted quiet so you came to _me?"_ she asks, but humor sings in her tone, and she pushes out the room's spare chair with her foot. "Joking, joking. Have a seat! I'm only doodling."

Smiling slightly despite himself—her good cheer is catching—Caleb sits, listening to the chair creak as he works to rid himself of his stiff posture and relax as best he can as he cracks opens the tome in his hands.

Silence unfolds between them. Jester sketches contently in her notebook, and Caleb's eyes scan the pages of his book diligently. His ears twitch at the scratching of her quill and her occasional giggle, but on the whole, it is truly a peaceful moment. He turns another page, and almost forgets why he came at all.

Something slips out of her mouth—it sounds like Infernal, and her harsh tone suggests it's a curse—and Caleb glances up to see Jester examining her hand, blue skin streaked with green paint.

 _"Shit,"_ she hisses under her breath, frowning unhappily at the mess.

Caleb watches as she begins to clean up the spilled paint, taking the moment to steal a glance at her sketchbook. He jolts when he sees the folds of a stark green cloak billowing across the pages, and sense slams into him.

_The Traveler and Trent Ikithon._

"What are you drawing?" Caleb asks, eyes still skimming the pages of his book, though his senses have been roused. She wipes off the rest of the paint before plucking her quill back up.

"Oh," Jester shrugs noncommittally. "Just stuff."

He nods easily. Of course. Stuff. Naturally.

"Anything of interest?" he asks. His lips crook in a whispered smile. "Designing appropriate décor to go with the name _Ball Eater?"_

She outright laughs at his joke, and he feels himself grow warmer than the firelight.

 _"Noooo,"_ she denies, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. She suddenly grins—sharp, with a few too many teeth. "But that reminds me—I should design more tattoos."

He nods in easy agreement, and part of him wants to leave things there—to take that image of her wry, cunning smirk and leave. He's going to have to push her to find out what he wants to know—to see how deeply intertwined she is with her god—and he knows, regardless of the answer, she isn't going to be pleased by the end of it.

Caleb takes a breath.

"Do you tell the Traveler everything?" he asks lightly. For all his social shortcomings—he's good at this. It'd be impossible for him not to be.

Caleb knows what this looks like—what it _feels_ like—from both sides of the mirror.

And given the green paint smeared on her hands and the silver sigil winking where it's pinned to her chest, the Traveler is hardly an unwelcome conversation topic.

Jester hums thoughtfully and he feigns interest in turning a page, though his gaze is nailed to the bouncing feathers of her quill as she continues to sketch and scribble.

"Silly question," she titters back to him, her accent sweetening her response. "Of course I do."

Light and careless. She speaks like spun sugar.

Caleb closes his book. He's started this and by all the gods in Wildemount—even the damnable Traveler himself—he's going to see it through.

"That notebook," he murmurs, eyeing the well-loved sketchbook plopped open in her lap. While she boasts being a jack of all trades—and in fairness has come through for the group more often than not—artistry truly does seem to be one of her more polished skills. "That's how you communicate with him, _ja?"_

Her quill pauses. Caleb can just make out a very fine sketch of Twiggy on the yellowed pages before she's turning to look back at him—twisting over herself until she's hanging off the back of the chair, quirking an inquisitive blue eyebrow, sketchbook flopping over to dangle precariously off her lap.

 _"Ja,"_ she agrees, canines flashing as she gives him a grin, lightly mocking his accent. He allows a small smile in return. Her tail swishes merrily over her shoulder and she wrinkles her nose a bit, the way she does when she's confused.

"Why're you asking so many questions, _Caleb?"_

She sing-songs his name, propping her chin up on her little blue fist, lips pushed out in an inquisitive pout.

One of Caleb's eyebrows wings up just slightly at the display. Her effortless charm both delights and concerns him—being positive is wonderful, but he oft wonders if her cheer is hiding something else. She reaches for a smile the way Yasha reaches for her sword—it's a reflex dictated by experience. It's her most reliable weapon.

 _"Maybe you're overthinking this,"_ Nott had murmured to him when he explained his thoughts early on, insisting to Nott that there was _something_ about their trickster cleric that pulled him in. The goblin had wrung her hands in that idly anxious way of hers—an endlessly fretful creature, she is. _"It's just…it's just **Jester,** Caleb. I don't think it's all that intriguing."_

Caleb shrugged, undeterred. _"Maybe so,"_ he agrees, because he had not gotten as far as he has by dismissing his companion. He'd tapped his fingers aimlessly on the cover of his book, thoughtful. _"Doubting or believing Jeter's depth as a person is irrelevant—I simply don't believe the world could produce someone so genuinely, **ceaselessly** happy."_

Nott had frowned in disagreement. _"She was spoiled, Caleb. I mean, don't get me wrong. I like her—really I do. But she isn't…she's not like **us."**_

Caleb had laughed—hoarse, and lacking humor—as he assessed his small friend over his shoulder, eyebrow raised.

 _"And we've cornered the market on misery, have we?"_ he'd asked, smirking slightly. _"I was unaware."_

"Just…curious," he hedges, and he sees a flash of intuition her eye—impossible to miss against her violet gaze. She quirks an eyebrow. A beat of silence follows.

"Do you have something you want to _say_ to the Traveler?" she eventually asks. Something weighs her tone down—a cool undercurrent runs beneath the gentle warmth of her speech. He's getting somewhere.

"Suppose I did." Caleb's calm cadence doesn't miss a beat. Jester is smart as a whip, but he'd endured a trial by fire the likes of which no one in the party has ever seen. She masks her truth with cheer—he's an outright liar.

He tilts his head to the side, offering her a look of pure scientific interest. "Would you let me?"

Jester assesses him closely, twirling her quill between nimble fingers. Her expression is still open, idly amused, the way it is when she's thinking. Either he hasn't tipped her off yet, or she's better at this than he'd gambled.

Caleb meets her gaze evenly. He learned deceit from the knee of the Empire's Archmage of Influence. If fire had not already seared itself into his skin as his favored element, lying would surely be his next choice.

"Well, sure," she answers, shrugging. "I just didn't think you were…into that kinda stuff."

She's still watching him—wise enough to know something isn't quite right, but struggling to place it. All while still presenting her merry little mask.

A sight to behold, their Jester is.

"It's just odd to see you so…" Caleb rolls a few words across his tongue, searching for the right one. "…well-behaved."

Her expression holds, but her eyebrows slant down a _fraction._

"Well-behaved?" she repeats, a questioning lilt to her voice.

"Well," his book his now forgotten in his lap, and Caleb feels himself begin to gesture somewhat uselessly with his hands. "I only mean that you seem to have a bit of fun with everyone, but that fun never extends to the Traveler himself."

Caleb had _always_ been on his best behavior around Ikithon. Gods, how he'd needed that man's approval—craving a compliment so desperately he felt his heart might burst simply from the act of wanting something so _ardently._

Jester's displeasure grows starker on her face.

"I _always_ have fun with the Traveler," she corrects him, the harsh cut to her words souring her usually sweet accent, resulting in an acrid string of syllables.

Caleb shrugs, heart pounding as he pushes his luck, willing himself to keep a straight face.

"So, what's a little more fun?" he presses. He puts himself in Jester's shoes—forces himself back into his stiff black tunic, the sigil of the Empire stitched over his heart in gold—curse his memory, he cannot forget—

_What would have upset him the most? What insult would he never had allowed to stand?_

"You should keep something from him," he suggests, knowing—beyond a _doubt_ —the idea is a struck match. He lets it burn. "What's the harm?"

Something falls across her face then—the stars of her eyes winking out in sudden supernova. Caleb feels his chest tighten because gods, oh _gods_ , there it is—

"Why would I keep anything from him?" she asks, defensiveness trickling out of her throat to pool across her tongue, soaking her words with a darkness Caleb feels kinship with. The curious, playful tilt to her head has been righted, and she stares at him with unnerving equilibrium—soft, round features smashed flat by her sudden anger.

"The Traveler is my _friend,_ Caleb," she tells him, a sudden chill to her tone.

 _Something_ —protectiveness? Jealousy? Concern?—flares white-hot in his chest, burning him from the inside-out. Caleb clears his throat, tasting the ashes of the unnamed emotion.

"Of course," Caleb hastens to agree. He pauses, racking his brain for the best angle. "We're friends too though, are we not?"

She nods once, eyes still narrowed.

"And you have not told me everything about you, nor have I told you everything about me, correct?"

She nods again.

"It just…" Caleb is scrabbling to recover his footing in this conversation. He cares and it's all over the place. "I don't know, perhaps I'm just an exceptionally private person, but it seems odd to tell someone _everything."_

He was taught to overshare—conditioned to surrender every last detail to Ikithon. He had no privacy, no secrets to speak of. He swallows once more, steeling his resolve.

He tries to remember where his past and Jester's present belong in the timeline of his mind, memories pouring in, floodgates lifting to drown his subconscious in years and years of _hurt—_

Jester, meanwhile, is having none of it.

"The Traveler—he isn't _just_ my friend, Caleb." She huffs, exasperated. "He _helps_ us! Why would you want me to _lie_ to him?"

"I don't know," Caleb answers honestly. He taps an uneven rhythm on the spine of his book—a nervous habit he can't seem to shake. "Why not? He likes tricks and jokes, does he not?"

"Lying to him isn't a _joke,_ Caleb," Jester tells him, tone growing hot. There's naked anger in her expression now, marred by the confusion that lingers. He can see the cogs turning in her head—he was taught how to pull people apart, of course he knows what makes them tic.

Irritation and puzzlement. Caleb wonders which she'll seek to soothe first.

"Do you…do you not _like_ the Traveler?" she demands, and Caleb goes still once again.

 _That_ is her concern? If _he_ likes the Traveler? Caleb can only stare at her for a moment, pointlessly searching for signs of deceit in the face of her honesty.

She shouldn't care about what _he_ thinks—she should be more worried about what the _Traveler_ thinks. The idea that his opinion—his own preferences or concerns or qualms—hold any weight when stacked against those of a _god_ makes his stomach churn in a way that is not wholly uncomfortable.

"I'm sorry, Jester, truly." Sincerity rings true in his tone—Jester just watches him with an icy stare. "I—I like the Traveler just fine, I just worry—as I do with Fjord and his patron and Yasha and her deity." He spreads his hands in a gesture of helpless honesty. "It is discomforting to stand aside as my friends wrestle with gods. I only want to help."

And while Caleb truly does mean that, he'd be lying if he said he worried over Fjord and Yasha the way he's come to worry over Jester. Fjord, he's learned, is determined to make his own decisions, for better or for worse, and Caleb has resigned himself to merely keeping pace with the warlock, so as to never be far away when one of his choices inevitably results in disaster. Yasha, by contrast, is rarely the object of Caleb's anxieties for the sole reason that if she cannot handle her tempestuous Storm Lord herself, a dirty wizard from Zemni Fields certainly doesn't stand a chance at picking up the slack.

_What else does Jester not know?_

Caleb was the brightest student in all the Empire, and even he didn't realize he was being manipulated until it was far too late. That's the crux of exploitive behavior—it can be masked as so many different things.

"I…I forgive you," she tells him, eyebrows still slanted down, jaw still tight with unhappiness. She reaches out to smack his shoulder—and yes, _ow_ , okay that really did sting quite a bit—

"Don't be such a _creep_ next time!" her reprimand is slightly shrill with her anger, but Caleb is fully aware that Jester could have hit him _far_ harder than she did, so he assumes she isn't _terribly_ angry with him.

He cracks a smile, rubbing his aching shoulder.

"Apologies, Jester," he tells her. He rises to his feet, tucking his book under his arm. "I will leave you to doodle in peace."

He turns toward the door—no less sick about the whole thing than he had been, but unwilling to let Jester see that on his face—when the tiefling calls out to him.

"You can come back sometime. You're not, y'know, _banned_ or anything." She glances at him at the edge of her vision, expression back to the absentminded cheer that hides a devastatingly clever mind. "I like having you around."

He's barely allowed a moment to bask in that statement before she's speaking again—

"You should be nice to the Traveler." Her lofty voice carries through the room, and Caleb glances back, amused by her sudden arch tone. She has her nose imperiously in the air, and he cracks a smile.

"Is that so?" he inquires, and he watches as she drops her haughty expression suddenly softens.

"I ask him to watch over you," she explains, voice suddenly far lower than he's heard it all night. She fusses aimlessly with her ink well. "I mean, I ask him to watch over everyone but…" Her tails swishes around at her ankles—her own anxious tic, perhaps?

Caleb loiters at her door, silently prompting her.

"But you just seem like you could use some…" she shrugs, the movement a bit jerky, uncoordinated. She won't look him in the eye. "I don't know. Extra help sometimes." A tinge of red colors her cobalt cheekbones.

He stands there, slightly numb, wholly unsure what to do with himself. The idea that he needs help should prick at his indignation—rattle the cage of his pride. But it doesn't. It _warms_ him.

He's so accustomed to the heat of fire—the raw, all-consuming burn of flames—he'd quite forgotten the simple pleasure to be had in the softness of firelight.

"Thank you, Jester," he manages around the sudden lump of _something_ in his throat.

She offers a soft smile in return, and when her hand reaches up to brush loose strands of hair behind her ear, Caleb is jarred by the green stains on her palm.

_The Traveler._

He takes his leave, and goes to find Fjord.

It isn't difficult to find him—Caleb hoped he wouldn't be, as he _is_ the Captain—and the half-orc looks up in surprise as Caleb suddenly blocks his progress down a narrow hallway in the _Ball Eater's_ hull.

Fjord lifts a questioning eyebrow.

"Everything alright, Caleb?" he asks, in that low, slow drawl of his.

"I just spoke with Jester." No preamble. No background. Fjord has made a mess of things these past few days by declining to think critically about his words and actions, and Caleb has decided it's his turn to do the same.

Nothing. Not a twitch. Fjord's face remains unchanged, though Caleb knows he's piqued his interest on some level. Mask of many faces indeed.

"Okay…?" the seaman prompts, titling his head questioningly. "Somethin' wrong?"

"Not exactly," Caleb explains. "Just…" he trails off, working his jaw, searching for the right words.

Fjord lifts an eyebrow at the tarnish of Caleb's usually somewhat silver tongue.

"I think," Caleb eventually begins, speaking carefully. "We need to keep an eye on Jester's _friend."_

It takes Fjord a moment—ichor eyes study Caleb closely—before understanding clears his expression.

 _"Ah,"_ he murmurs. "Yeah. I hear ya."

Caleb nods slowly, still holding the other man's gaze.

"Did he come at all?" the wizard's voice is hardly more than a whisper. "When you were…" He allows his sentence to die off, lifting an eyebrow. He can't give voice to the time when their party had grown even smaller. It hurts too much, still, and Caleb is not a man of resounding resilience. The words to describe that night—that mistake, that _loss—_ get stuck in his throat.

Fjord shakes his head.

"No." There's an angry strain to the half-orc's voice. He's thought about this as well, it seems. "Not once."

Caleb swallows with some difficulty. Well. Isn't that something, then.

"He must care about her in some capacity," the wizard muses, scratching idly at his scruff as his mind races. Blue eyes seek a gold pair in the low light of the hall as Caleb glances up at Fjord. "Right?"

Fjord levels a stare back at his companion, and Caleb's fingers twitch in half-formed somatic gestures. Another nervous habit. He's full of them, honestly.

"The way I see it," there's an edge to Fjord's usual false drawl—fringed and sharp like a saw. "Folks who hold the cards—beings in positions of power—they don't need to care too much about anyone underneath 'em."

Caleb lifts an eyebrow. "You _don't_ think he cares, then," the wizard deduces somewhat crisply.

"I _think,"_ the sharpness of Fjord's speech could draw blood, Caleb's sure of it. "There are a lot of people who could take Jester's place, should our _friend_ see a need to do so."

Irrational anger blooms in Caleb's chest—painful and harsh and prompting him to pull his lips back in a sneer. Jester? _Replaceable?_ Indignation on her behalf seizes Caleb by the throat.

A sturdy, scarred green hand appears on the shoulder of his tattered coat, weighing him down, holding him back. Fjord curls his fingers just slightly. A warning? A reminder? Caleb stills at the touch, unsure.

"I don't think I have to make it clear that _I_ don't think that," he continues. He searches Caleb's eyes forcefully, and Caleb glares up into his eldritch-laced gaze. "Do I?"

Caleb swallows hard. His heart thrums loudly in his ears.

 _"Nein,"_ he remarks. "Of course not."

Fjord nods slowly, accepting the wizard's answer, and dropping his hand. Caleb nods back, turning to reach for the door that will lead him back to the upper deck.

"Did somethin' happen?" Fjord's whiskey-smooth accent is rough with something Caleb can't identify. "I mean…I didn't know you cared for her so much."

Caleb pauses, bandaged hand hovering over the doorknob. He cares for all of them, truthfully—Nott most of all, but he feels she's owed that. But Jester? Specifically? His brow furrows. He'd admitted as much to himself over the past weeks, but put on the spot and suddenly...he isn't certain.

His memory knocks again, making him wince as he's pulled back into his own recollections.

Falling to their deaths in the jungle with only a brief snap of time in which to act, struggling to grasp the needed materials, the wind ripping Feather Fall's verbal component out of his throat as he designated those he wished to save—himself, Nott, _Jester—_ and _then_ the others.

Even further back—curse his memory, _he cannot forget_ —the recollection of their time in Hupperdook, hazy with his drinking, visions of a clumsy waltz fill his mind's eye, he'd called her _Astrid—_

More recently, their low, candle-lit conversation, he'd reminded her—in passing, thinking nothing of it—how she'd helped him back to their quarters that night, drunken mess and all, hadn't left him behind—

She'd giggled, blue hand rising up to mask her amusement amongst the crowded bar.

 _"I thought about it. It would have been pretty funny for you to wake up."_ Her eyes had gleamed—bright and playful—before softening to something almost gentle.

_"But I like you more than that."_

Jester Lavorre—priestess of trickery, cleric of chaos—liked _him_ too much? The same tiefling that had defiled the Church of the Platinum Dragon—she placed _his_ feelings above the satisfaction of a simple prank?

He would have been annoyed at such a trick—he doesn't drink nearly enough to master a hangover the way Nott does; he might have scolded her for it and been a bit peeved for the rest of the day, but it wouldn't have driven a wedge between them. It wouldn't prompt him to hate her, or even dislike her.

Surely, she knew that. She must have weighed the pros and cons, and yet—he came out on top.

Caleb had assured himself his fixation isn't rooted in romantic affection, so what _is_ it?

"Caleb?" The wizard blinks as Fjord steps closer, peering down at him intently. "You there, friend? Did anything happen to you and Jester?"

 _Did_ something? Or, rather, _had_ things been happening? This whole time he's been so obsessed over Jester's apparent priority in his mind—had he missed that same priority in hers?

"No," Caleb answers, lightly shrugging, lying casually. The half-orc is part of this—part of his _family._ Caleb would turn the ocean to ash before he let anything happen to the warlock before him, but—this is different. He still isn't sure why.

Forget what Jester doesn't know—what is it that _Caleb_ doesn't know?

He reaches up in turn to clap Fjord on the shoulder, pale skin standing out starkly against the sable leather of his companion's armor.

"Nothing happened," he assures the other man. He squeezes lightly. "Just…trying to stay one step ahead, _ja?"_

Fjord gazes at him for a long, silent moment, before finally nodding slowly.

"'Course," he rumbles back. "That's…very like you, Caleb."

Caleb smiles thinly. "I do my best, Fjord."

**Author's Note:**

> y’all ever just get steamrolled with feelings
> 
> what’s up I literally haven’t watched a full episode Critical Role since The Big Sad of Episode Twenty-Six (partly because obviously it was really sad but mostly because I just haven’t had time lol) but I keep up with people who live-tweet the shows and highlight vids and through art and stuff so I have a pretty good idea of where everyone’s at and what’s going on and of course I still love all these fools and their dumb D&D children BUT shout out as always to the meticulous folks over at the Crit Role Stats and Crit Role Transcriptions bc that helped a bunch.
> 
> I get bad vibes from the Traveler. I can’t explain it. ever since Matt felt the need to point out he isn’t _necessarily_ a god ~~which I’m fully aware could have just been for the hashtag drama~~ I’ve been suss as hell. him saving her in episode 45 did make me reconsider a tiny bit, but the weird way Marion was like “your _friend?"_ back at the Chateau and Jester’s literal blind worship of him and the fact that she’s so completely dependent on him and his approval makes me McFucking Anxious. he could tell her to leave the squad tomorrow and I think she’d fucking do it. WHY HAS NO ONE ELSE HEARD OF THIS GOD THAT’S FUCKING WEIRD OKAY HE ISN’T A GOD HE’S LIKE A SORCERER WITH A GOD COMPLEX OR SOME SHIT IDK
> 
> the Traveler isn’t a god he’s a fucking Dude in a Cloak I’m sorry I don’t make the rules I just am not convinced at all and I can’t explain it I just don’t trust that fool. fast forward to episode one hundred when the gang unmasks the Traveler scooby-doo style and Marion Lavorre is beating the shit out of some skinny punk in a green robe for yanking her daughter around.
> 
> anyway this is all completely due to [@sketchingsprw's](https://twitter.com/sketchingsprw) very lovely Caleb and Jester piece, which you should go show some love to [here!](https://twitter.com/sketchingsprw/status/1072546128531476486) I was really struck by her musings of their relationship.
> 
> thank you all for reading! I have a [twitter](https://twitter.com/reduxwriter) if you ever want to drop me a line! I also have three other CR pieces you can read [here!](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bsort_column%5D=revised_at&include_work_search%5Bfandom_ids%5D%5B%5D=5406982&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bexcluded_tag_names%5D=&work_search%5Bcrossover%5D=&work_search%5Bcomplete%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_from%5D=&work_search%5Bwords_to%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_from%5D=&work_search%5Bdate_to%5D=&work_search%5Bquery%5D=&work_search%5Blanguage_id%5D=&user_id=MidwesternDuchess)
> 
> have a lovely day, kids <3


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